Kim Ritman, the nation's chief plant protection officer with the Federal Department of Agriculture, confirms there is minimal biosecurity testing for seeds coming into the country.

"This is an unregulated pathway at the moment, much like a lot of other seeds that come into the country," Dr Ritman said.

"We don't test all seeds. We don't have the coverage or even the reason to do those.

“Importing industries and seed companies do undertake their own testing. Those tests have various levels of coverage.”

Mr Ritman says as a result of the Territory outbreak, more stringent biosecurity measures could be put in place for cucurbit seeds coming into Australia.

"We do our best to look overseas and take the right steps, but certainly this may well trigger another look into high priority pathways,” he said.

“The emergency measures aren’t in place yet, they're still being considered and discussed with industry, but one possible outcome is there will be testing of seeds, much in the way carrot seeds are now being tested.”

Origins of CGMMV

It's difficult for authorities to make a combative decision without knowing the origins of the disease, and how far it's spread.

The virus travels on seed, through machinery, pollen, people and even birds. But also could have quite easily been brought in on the shoe of an overseas traveller.

One theory is that infected seeds were imported, grown out in an Australian nursery and then sent to the Territory.

John McDonald, from the Nursery & Garden Industry Queensland, says there are a number of ways infected seed can make it into Australian soil.

"If they are direct seeding, the grower will take that seed, plant it in the field and grow that crop," he said.

"Others will contract a production nursery to grow that seed on their behalf, and produce the seedlings, germinate it then despatch it back to the farmer."

These are the official ways to bring seed in. Complicating matters is the fact seeds can be brought in illegally, which would make it almost impossible to establish the origin of the virus.

Potential links to Queensland nurseries and seed producers

It's too early to determine where the infected seeds came from, and if infected seeds were even the cause of the outbreak.

However, if the virus did enter Australia through lawful means, that puts seed producers and nurseries in the firing line.